Senior Probate Lawyer
Legacy & Trust Litigation
Exeter, Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Plymouth
Apply nowWe are seeking to recruit an experienced and motivated Senior Probate Lawyer to work in our dynamic and fast-growing Legacies & Trust Disputes team. The team deals with a range of work for national charities, including probate, and is ranked in tier 1 for Charities (Legacies) UK-wide in Chambers. This is a superb opportunity to work with a high calibre client base from the outset, and you can expect to work flexibly from home and in the office as needed to meet the changing needs of the clients and the wider business.
What you'll do
As an experienced Probate Lawyer, you will have your own busy caseload from the start and be accustomed to working independently to a high standard in order to meet clients' expectations. Taking responsibility for all aspects of administering estates where our charity client is the executor/administrator, you will be working with closely with 7 other lawyers specialising in probate for charities, at differing levels of experience. Working collaboratively to share your expertise, you will be supporting the development of less experienced members of the team, facilitating their development to work with increased confidence and independence over time. You will be comfortable working with minimal supervision on complex matters, whilst benefiting from the support of colleagues to share ideas with from the beginning. You will be part of a wider and highly regarded team of over 25 people which has evolved to meet the specific needs of its charity clients providing dispute resolution, estate administration and legacy income management.
We think of our team as being a genuinely innovative environment, where being proactive and forward thinking of behalf of our clients is actively promoted. We use bespoke technology solutions and legal design to interact with our clients in order to deliver exceptional service, and are keen to continue inviting fresh ideas and approaches from all team members. Furthermore, we encourage personal development through our Business Skills & Digital Skills Academy and are keen to support other opportunities which may come up from time to time, such as client secondments.
What we're looking for
First and foremost, you will be a motivated and enthusiastic Probate Lawyer with a genuine desire to work in a collaborative and high performing team environment. With at least 5+ years PQE or equivalent, you can readily demonstrate solid post qualification experience as a genuine specialist in probate, including expertise in tax relating to the administration of estates. It is highly likely you will have attained STEP qualifications already or be working towards them.
With your level of experience, you will be accustomed to supervising and/or supporting the development of junior fee earners in your current role and be positive and approachable in doing so. You'll appreciate the importance of work being done at the right level and understand how to build confidence in the individuals around you, whilst ensuring the high quality of work shared with clients.
We consider ourselves to be a high performing, welcoming and inclusive team, and your first-class communication skills will enable you to become a key member, gaining the trust of a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. In this role, you will have exceptional opportunities to develop strong and lasting client relationships, and you will be personally motivated and enthusiastic about this prospect, with a view to building or extending your profile in this area of law. As part of an ambitious and enthusiastic team, we will support you to engage in or lead a range of business development opportunities in order to continue developing your profile and progressing your career over time.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this role, please contact our Recruitment Team via email in the first instance, and we will come back to you as soon as we can: [email protected]
Why Foot Anstey?
As one of the UK's fastest growing law firms, we believe in helping our clients and people achieve their ambitions, unlocking new and exciting opportunities. Our team of business and legal advisors are motivated by understanding clients' goals and collaborating with them and other advisers to deliver the right solutions at the right time. We are on an exciting journey to become our clients’ most trusted advisor, enabling them to achieve their ambitions, and we think how we do it is just as important as what we do. Our values guide the way we act, every day, from the way we operate as a business to how we treat our colleagues and clients:
• collaboration over convention
• championing aspiration
• being refreshingly human
• embracing entrepreneurial spirit
• delivering integrated thinking
We're proud to have grown from a high-street firm to a significant regional and national player working with leading brands and individuals predominantly across six key sectors: Retail, Private Equity, Islamic Finance, Energy, Developers and Private Wealth. Our strategy of gaining market share through meeting clients' needs, investing in and developing high quality talent and using technology and innovation to enhance our services has led to significant growth. We now operate from eight bases: Truro, Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, Southampton, Oxford and London.
Our people are critical to our success. We work hard to help our employees achieve their aspirations through offering meaningful careers with balanced rewards, which have been carefully designed to focus on personal wellbeing. Wellbeing matters to us and our people enjoy a range of benefits which we think are a bit special, such as the weekly Lifestyle Hour to use as you wish, and our Family Hour option which makes a day of annual leave go so much further across the year.
Being forward thinking, we are continually offering opportunities for support and professional development through our Business Skills Academy and Digital Skills Academy. We believe in empowering each other to achieve and strive to create a progressive and inclusive working environment where everyone can feel valued and rewarded. Understanding that being flexible makes us stronger, we actively encourage a variety of working patterns for most of our vacancies, dependant upon the needs of the team, and over 40% of our employees have a permanent flexible working pattern.
Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is central to our business, and essential to delivering our strategy, so we were delighted to be awarded the National Equality Standard in 2018 and to successfully renew this in 2021. It is right at the heart of our priorities. This goes beyond our policies – it’s something we consider across everything we do, from the make-up of our client teams, encouraging staff to reach their potential, through to our leadership.
We are committed to ‘powering your ambition’, which defines and sets us apart as a firm. It means that we aim to support our clients and our people to achieve their goals, regardless of background, gender, race, beliefs, sexuality or other non-work related factors. We champion aspiration and encourage it in everyone that works with us. As such we actively encourage applications from all suitably qualified people, regardless of any characteristics protected by law. If you apply for this role you are encouraged to answer the diversity and social mobility monitoring questions. Any answers you provide will remain entirely anonymous and confidential and will in no way impact your application.
We're looking forward to hearing from you.
Foot Anstey. Powering Your Ambition.